Into the Grey
by GreenWood Elf
Summary: It was hard for him to forget, even though sometimes, he couldn't bear to remember. A continuation of the 'Cross' series.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **Hello all and welcome to "Into the Grey". This fic is another continuation of the "Cross" series, so you probably have to be familiar with my other Priest stories in order to understand exactly what's going on here. For those of you who have read my previous fics, welcome back! I'm so thrilled to have received such a positive response to this series and, as promised, I'm finally going to expand on the Priest/Priestess ship I left off with in "Cross". This will be a rather introspective story, detailing some of the important moments in Priest's various relationships with the women in his life, namely Shannon, Rebecca and, of course, Priestess/Rowan. I except this fic to be about three chapters long, with an additional prologue and epilogue. Thanks for stopping by and I do hope you enjoy the prologue!

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Priest nor the characters affiliated with the movie/manga series.

**Into the Grey**

**Prologue**

_Three Months after 'Cross'_

He woke when it was dark, when the Wastelands were swathed in a gauzy coat of black and the distant mountain peaks only tinged with a hint of grey. The vast silence of the desert was a gift and it allowed him to hear her breathing beside him, allowed him to cherish the low, rasping sound as she took air into her lungs and sweetly, softly, pushed it back out through her parted lips. Priest welcomed the luxuriant quiet. He laid still and counted the minutes he had her to himself, before the world would come trudging in, bringing a new day with it and they would have to be soldiers again.

For the first time in his life, Priest enjoyed the last blush of darkness. It was a period of the most intimate privacy for him. He could be a man alone and not a member of the clergy. Not a Priest of the Order which had won the first war and was now struggling to win a second. And Priestess, no, he could call her Rowan, the name her mother gave her. He could whisper into her ear when she was still asleep, over and over and over again.

_Rowan…_

They were staying in a safe house on the outskirts of a town called Bethel. It was one of the smaller outposts, closer to the farthest reaches of the Wastelands than it was to the cities. The placement of the safe house was strategic. It belonged to another Priest and had been immediately offered for their use after they had left the city. The snug building had become a rendezvous point, a place for Priests to gather and exchange news or lay low when they felt the scrupulous eye of the Church watching them too closely.

Priest and Rowan had hunkered done in the safe house for a week, waiting for Seth to report back from his tour of the Hives. It had three months since Marcus's return and they were meticulously proceeding with their own plan of attack, with or without the Church's blessing. As the de facto leader of the Order, Priest had spent the first month taking stock of his troops. There weren't many of them left, of course. Seth and Esther. One of the twins. A dozen or so others. Overnight, they each of them had become pilgrims again, traveling the Wastelands in search of vampire herds, making plans, gathering supplies, preparing for a new campaign, a new war that would be waged by outlaws and exiles.

Priest stretched his legs out in the narrow bed, rolling carefully onto his side. Sometime during the night, he had let Rowan pull away from him. She was sleeping all folded up, legs curled against her abdomen, one arm thrown over her knees. Gently, he touched her bare back with the tips of his fingers, the calloused pads sticking to her warm skin. Priest kissed her shoulder, his lips making a faint sucking sound, his teeth clicking together as he bit back the name that rose eagerly onto his tongue.

_Rowan. Rowan…_

He savored the rare peace of the moment, falling onto his back, his head cradled by a rough pillow that was stuffed with straw and covered in scratchy fabric. Even in the serene blue-grey of the morning, he could feel the heat stretching out over the desert. It would be a long day, followed by even longer days and endless nights he would spend awake, watching, waiting. And the waiting was the worst part. Waiting for Marcus to strike. Hoping that Lucy and Peter were safe. Missing his children, but accustomed to the subtle ache of his sacrifice.

Priest realized, blinking at the cobwebbed rafters above him, that he had gotten old, that this new war probably wasn't for him, but a younger generation of Priests. But there were no younger Priests. No novices. Only Seth and Esther. One of the twins and a dozen others. And Rowan, of course. Rowan, who was finally his.

But even now, Priest did not want to call her his. It was dangerous. It seemed almost taboo. In that quiet space, when he laid alone, truly alone, Priest considered his vows and hers and the vow they had made together, not so long ago. Rowan told him, many times, that it was not a sin. He needed to believe her and he was envious of her self-confidence, of her soul, which was without ghosts and without guilt. They were in love, she told him. And Priest told her, as often as he could, that he loved her. Because he had said it to Shannon once. Because he had never confessed it to Rebecca. Because he wanted Rowan to hear it while she still could, while they could be together, their time unspoiled, like this dawn now, that was coming as an eager bride over the distant horizon.

_Rowan…._

Priest closed his eyes, studying the image he had built in his mind of her, her face not scarred by the cross, but smiling, happy, a mix of the young girl he had known and the woman he had grown with. It was hard for him to think of her as older now. Rowan still had youth on her side. She still had a beautiful, tender heart that had always beat for him, as she had told him shyly that first night together. Priest wished that he could tell her the same, that she had been his only, his one. But he couldn't erase his past without first forgetting his children and he couldn't remember his children without remembering them.

_Them._

Rowan wasn't jealous. She had curiosity in her quick eyes when he talked about them. She asked questions, but was never prying. She had never known Shannon. And she had known Rebecca only as Priestess, as that graven image of cruelty and taciturn indifference that had shaped her years as a novice.

Priest, for his part, preferred to be secretive about them, although they had marked him with traces of the past… and memories.

His eyelids fluttered open and he focused on the ceiling, the cobwebs colored a woolly off-white as morning light seeped under the shades and through the window screens, which fractured the sunrays into tiny diamonds. But it was dark and warm where Priest laid next to Rowan, pressed close to her, as if he could hold her tight enough to block out the world. To ignore the threat of a new day.

"Rowan." Priest spoke her name this time, whispered it to her, hoping that the thread of his voice would reach her in her sleep and _always_, always she would know that she was loved.

But loving her meant loving the ghosts. And they came to him now, during a time when it was not quite night, but still not day. Priest was caught in the in-between with them. Trapped in the purgatory of his own memory, in the expanse of grey, where all that was permanent seemed uncertain, and where it was hard for him to forget, even though sometimes, he couldn't bear to remember.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thanks for reading! If you have some free time, please leave me a review. I just love hearing from my readers.

The next installment, which is currently in the works, will feature a bit of Priest and Shannon's past history together. With any luck, I should have the next chapter posted soon. Until then, take care and be well!


	2. Part I His

**Author's Note: **Sorry! I know I made you, my faithful readers, wait an indecently long time for an update to this fic. I shouldn't excuse my tardiness, but all I can say is that RL has been crazy and quite challenging and I didn't have as much time for writing as I would have liked. Again, I'm so so sorry! I really didn't want to make you guys wait this long. Thank you so much for your patience, though. You've all been wonderfully supportive. ^_^ And, as always, thanks so much for reading in the first place and for reviewing. **saichickAnnaErishkigal, Aphrodite96, WickedAmethyst **and **Genius626**, you guys are the best! I do hope you enjoy this installment.

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Priest nor any of the characters associated with the manga series/movie.

**Part I His**

"She's yours." It was what the doctor said to him, handing over a tangle of blankets that fit easily in his long arms.

"She's all yours, son." The words were spoken with warm pride. The doctor cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing over his unbuttoned collar as he glanced over his spectacles at the new father. "Did I forget to mention it's a girl? Your wife's given you a nice, healthy daughter."

Ivan lifted his head, the doctor's voice buzzing dully in his ears, like the distant puttering of an old motorcycle ridden hard over the salt flats. He was aware of the room around him and yet detached, his spirit separated from his physical body and invested in the tiny, bulbous creature lying swaddled in his arms.

Her. She. _His daughter._

Suddenly, his hands began to shake.

The steamy air of the birthing room was rank with obnoxious odors, blood and sweat, the last, keening, pitiful screams of his wife as she struggled through the final moments of labor. He'd seen Shannon with her body twisted in agony, gripping the bed sheets, a strange hue of marbled red rising up into her cheeks, her jaw clenched against each relentless wave of pain.

And Ivan had been heartbroken at the sight of his wife, which was why the doctor had tried his best to keep him away from Shannon. The cantankerous old physician usually didn't allow the fathers in the birthing room. It wasn't so much about tradition as it was instinct. Because in that instant, in that rare, dark moment when the mother hovered close to death in her attempts to give life, fear could work a strange kind of hatred into a man's heart. Fear could make him hate his child at the time when he should have loved it the most.

But that wasn't true for Ivan, who had a way of centering himself in moments of crises. He could calm his mind by repeating certain prayers the parish priest had taught him and he could draw his soul away from terror, until only his flesh resounded with the tell-tale intoxication of adrenaline.

It was different now though, now when he held the child and felt her weight and the heat coming off her tiny body. Now as he stared into her eyes, little slivers that hinted at filmy blue. Now when he let his fingers brush over the few fine strands of reddish hair clinging to her scalp. Now when he realized that she was indeed his, that she was _of_ him and Shannon, a gift, a blessing, a miracle…

"She's yours."

Ivan looked up and saw that Shannon had pushed herself onto her elbows. Her legs were bent, her knees flopping together, the sheets tented and damp with angry splotches of blood. The nurse hadn't gotten around to changing the bedclothes yet. But Ivan could almost appreciate the scene, which highlighted a certain primal beauty that only his human heart could recognize.

He edged over to the bed, carefully leaning over the baby so that he could press his lips to Shannon's head, his nose nuzzled against her hairline.

"Ours," he corrected, speaking with a reverence that suited the low shadows of the room. The walls loomed around them, thick with stucco and unadorned save for the solitary wooden cross over the headboard.

Shannon reached up a hand, her fingers slick with sweat, to touch the bundle. "You win," she said drowsily, for there had been a debate amongst the couple lately, Ivan asking for a girl, while his wife had wanted a son to name after her husband. The futility of their good-natured squabbling was exposed now, however. Ivan closed his eyes. He bent his head over Shannon and their daughter. The throb of life was forceful between them and he could hear a change in his breathe, a new beat to his heart as his soul adjusted to parenthood, to the achievement that had been the secret wish of his threadbare existence.

Suddenly, the world seemed thick with color and scent and promise. It was fresh and sparkling, like Eden on that first day, verdant with danger and a dazzling beauty that he thought might blind him. For his heart was already heavy with this new love. Ivan did not think he could bear the exquisite, almost torturous magnificence of it any longer.

"I want to name her Lucy," he said. His voice grated in the back of his throat. Ivan choked on emotion, on the tears that splashed down his face.

"I like Annabelle," Shannon said. Her lips curved in a tired smile. Red streaked the whites of her eyes like the thin veins of lightning that speared the Wastelands sky on those rainless, endless summer afternoons. "But she's your girl. She's what you wanted. Lucy…" Shannon played with the name. "Yours."

"Ours," Ivan mumbled again, although he knew she was right.

This child, his daughter, had somehow always been his.

"I won't lie," Shannon lisped. "She looks a lot like you." Her head came to rest on the very back of her pillow, her neck arched, the rhythm of her pulse exposed in her bare throat. In hectic candlelight her skin was stained the color of diluted blood. The satisfaction in her smile, the weary acceptance of her body's limitations, was taking her away from the waking world. Ivan could tell that his wife was desperately trying to stay awake in order to solidify and extend the first precious moment between them. She was fighting to keep her eyes open and yet loosing ground with each heavy sigh of her bosom.

"You'll stay with her, won't you?" Shannon asked in a child-like voice, maternal instinct softening and reshaping her sense of self even now. It was an ancient ritual, like the rising and falling of the great moon, a rhythm of earth and life and nature all bound into one as Shannon shed her girlhood and became a mother.

And she was all the more beautiful for it, Ivan thought, as he watched her eyelids droop, her breath exhaling gently through her dry, parted lips.

He kissed the top of her head lightly, even though he wished to gather Shannon into his arms along with his child and hold them to him until he was certain that he understood the miracle that he had been given, that he had received from God, because she was his.

Lucy…_mine…._

As Shannon moved towards sleep, the nurse gently reasserted her presence in the room, coming between Ivan and the bed as she began to strip the soiled sheets. Ivan looked away. There was something intensely feminine in her actions. As a man, he knew there were certain mysteries he was not meant to understand, particularly the pain and struggle that accompanied birth, mingled with the frantic, overwhelming joy he had seen in Shannon's eyes as she labored.

Instinctively, Ivan wandered out of the room with Lucy still in his arms, leaving the nurse to fuss over his wife with her mother-henish solicitude. The sparse living room of his house blazed with light and warmth. He saw the doctor reclining in the rocking chair by the pot-bellied stove, his own weariness showing now that his work was done.

Grudgingly, Ivan cleared his throat to speak. He was by nature a quiet man, something Shannon never minded, and he had a habit of losing himself in prayer. Not fervently, like the wandering zealots who would sometimes appear in the back of their church and remain on their knees throughout the entire Mass, but with a thoughtful distance that separated himself from most men, even the parish priest.

The doctor seemed to understand this, but he still looked toward the new father expectantly.

Ivan lowered his eyes to Lucy, who, like her mother, was dozing. "Thank you," he replied, speaking with his whole heart, for he had heard tales of mothers who had labored endlessly and birthed babies that were born already dead. "Thank you for…" He trailed off. What could he say? What poor, dry words could describe his gratefulness, his true appreciation for what this man had done?

But the doctor seemed satisfied. He nodded as he went about cleaning his spectacles with his handkerchief. "All right, son," he muttered. "You just take care of your girls for me. Especially your little one. She's got something of her father in her, I think. More than what she has from her mother."

Ivan was oddly flattered although he knew he shouldn't be. Pride was a sin and he, of all men, had never been prideful. Balancing Lucy in his left arm, he extended his right hand. "Doctor," he said.

The doctor reached forward to grasp his fingers, but the sound of approaching motorcycles ruptured the moment. Ivan looked up. There were at least four bikes, one with a engine that growled and groaned and choked as it chugged up the uneven pathway to his house. The others hummed sleekly, a faint whir accompanying the rotation of their wheels over the dense, hard-packed sound. It was a sound Ivan could easily define, even though his memory told him he had heard it before. His nerves bristled even as he cradled Lucy closer. He felt as though a series of tiny electrical pulses were skittering down his body, making his flesh tingle in a way that was uncomfortable, but not unknown. In times like these, when the nights were long and haunted by the elephantine cries of hunting vampires, no man could sleep easy in his bed. Especially now, Ivan thought, glancing down at his daughter. Especially now.

The bikes were slowing and circling the front of the house so that he could see fitful flashes of their headlights through the thin curtains. Ivan looked at his long rifle perched over the sideboard. He could make it across the room in two strides, hand Lucy off to the doctor and load the weapon before the door was breached. For once, he was glad for his preternatural speed and strength, which had marked him as odd in the eyes of all his neighbors and the residents of his hometown, Augustine. Not being a prideful man, Ivan had never told everyone, not even his brother, that he was particularly adept at violence. Nor did he dare admit to anyone, maybe even to himself, that he liked it.

The bikes stopped. The engines clicked off. The silence outside was disturbed only by the hesitant shuffle of booted feet, the caution of hunters and predators alike.

But it wasn't any fanged carnivore that came for his family that night, only his brother Owen who stomped into the house, hat in his hand like he was intruding on something private and in a way, Ivan reasoned, he was.

He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. He wanted to relax and given into that giddy sort of humor that comes with gazing at death and living to tell the tale. But Ivan saw that Owen was pale and sweating, his younger brother dazed and rattled and so clearly shaking in his boots that his own heart skipped a beat.

Something was wrong, he reasoned. Something had to be wrong, for no man was allowed to be this unjustifiably happy.

"I'm sorry," Owen was already apologizing. He had a nervous habit of swiping the side of his hand against his brow, his fingers tangling in the tuft of amber-colored hair that fell over his forehead. "I didn't mean to come by so late…with Shannon and…" He broke off and looked at his brother with a miserable sort of smile, gesturing wordlessly at the bundle of blankets in Ivan's arms.

"A niece," Ivan replied. He paused, and then added. "Shannon's doing fine. Sleeping."

"It was an easy birth, thank God," the doctor remarked.

Ivan was inclined to disagree, as he knew Shannon would.

Owen only laughed, a short, sparse sound that hissed through his teeth. "Never thought my gangly old milk-haired brother would make a father someday," he muttered, "but I'm so happy for you Ivan…and Shannon. Can't say I ever thought of myself as an uncle either…but…"

There was a beat of silence. The weight of Lucy's soft body pressing down into Ivan's elbow joints. He felt wretchedly possessive of his little one, holding her close to his chest, shielding her from the world that already seemed too large and too loud and too dangerous for any innocent to survive. But Ivan was far from innocent and he experienced an animalistic surge of pride, knowing that he would protect his daughter from all the predatory threats that loomed like shadows around his tiny house in the Wastelands. He had a family now, a proper family and it seemed as though his purpose in life had been rewritten. The aimlessness of his youth dissolved into robust maturity and responsibility. He had a lot to live for and even more that he would die for.

Owen was twisting his fingers in his forelock again, his dusty boots leaving vague footprints on Shannon's lavender braided rug. "The truth is," he said, "I didn't come out here just to take a look at my new niece, pretty sight that she is, though. There's some people rode into Augustine 'bout an hour ago. They're looking for you, Ivan. Wouldn't be satisfied till I brought them right out here to you."

Ice settled into Ivan's stomach, although he tried not to show it. While Owen was speaking, the doctor had risen stiffly from the rocking chair and walked over to the window.

"There's people on the porch," he said, plucking back the curtain.

And before he could finish, the front door was thrust open, heavy footfalls thundering over the threshold. Startled, Ivan took a step towards the bedroom, half-turning his body so that Lucy was blocked from the intruders. It was if the night had bled into the house. The figures were swathed in rough, black fabric, their heads covered by hoods, with only a glint of cold silver showing at their waists where steel rosary beads dangled against their knees.

"I tried to hold them off till morning," Owen croaked even as the strangers brushed him aside.

"Pardon me," the doctor fumed as he too was pushed away.

"We're looking for the man called Isaacs," the foremost figure announced.

Ivan was surprised to hear the voice of woman.

"Isaacs. Are you Isaacs?" She removed her hood with a gloved hand, revealing a badly scarred face and red hair pulled back into a sleek braid. There was an ash-colored cross tattooed to her forehead. At once, Ivan knew who the strangers were.

"I am Isaacs," he said, taking a step forward. He hesitated, for one moment, for one excruciating, seemingly endless moment, and then handed Lucy over to his brother.

* * *

**Author's Note: **A little retrospective on Priest's life before he was a Priest. The next installment will focus on Priest/Rebecca and then, afterwards, I'll finally explore Priest/Priestess's relationship. Should be fun. ^_^

Although I don't like to discuss my personal life, I'd like to ask for some prayers/good vibes for next week. On October 30th I'm scheduled for some major surgery to have a gastric pacemaker implanted that will (hopefully!) manage my gastroparesis, which is pretty severe. As a result, updates might be delayed as I recover, so I do apologize in advance for any delays. Thanks, guys! And thanks so much for reading! If you have some free time, please leave me a review. Feedback will certainly cheer me up when I'm in the hospital. Until next time, take care and be well!


	3. Part II Savages

**Author's Note: **Yes, here I am with a massively late update. I'm sorry I've been so remiss lately. Dealing with my health issues and the surgery has left me depleted and, in the meantime, I'm pretty sure my muse has run-off to somewhere warm and tropical without telling me. I really wanted to have this chapter posted much sooner because I love writing this story and I love the support/encouragement I receive from all my fantastic readers, but RL has been demanding so much of my attention and strength, I just haven't had the time. Will you please forgive me? ^_^ Either way, I do hope you enjoy this installment.

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Priest nor any of the characters associated with the movie/manga.

**Part Two Savages**

Priest hated Jericho. It was a lurid town of factories centered on the railroad line, a place of human refuse where refugees from the outposts sought shelter and where exiles from the cities sought a place of sanctuary away from the ever probing eye of the Church. The streets were narrow and crowded. The air tasted of soot. And every evening, the refinery smokestacks belched fire into the sky, coloring the heavens a hellish, streaked red that made him think of the apocalypse, of the absolute end of an already broken world.

It was easy for Priest to despise the town. It was easy for him to abhor the place which would become her Gethsemane and the site of his Judas betrayal.

And yet there was something insidiously redeeming about Jericho, from a military standpoint, at least. The town had been built on a slightly raised plateau about twenty miles from the largest hive, Sola Mira, and easy access to transportation through the railroad made it ideal for positioning an army. Near the end of the war, it had become the unlikely headquarters of his Order, the place where humanity would at last be saved, and she, yes she, would fall.

Not from the heights of Sola Mira, as the Church would report. Not from glorious battle into martyrdom.

Jericho was the place Rebecca where would fall, tumble from grace, his idol of strength slipping from her cracked pedestal, his lover committing herself to a sacrifice like the virgin offerings of the heathen years before, although she was no virgin.

And the fault, of course, was his.

The night had been hot, his face slicked with an ugly sweat as he finished his patrol of the borders of the town. He did most of the patrol on his motorcycle, his path criss-crossing with several other Priests who were also assigned to sentry duty. Because of Jericho's relative proximity to Sola Mira, only the most trusted veterans of the Order were assigned that particular patrol. Priest stayed on duty for at least sixteen hours out of the day, ever vigilant, and when he returned to his quarters at nightfall, unspent adrenaline often kept him from sleep.

Most of the crowds and workmen made it a habit to clear the streets by dusk. Families shuttered themselves tightly behind barred windows and steel doors, even though Priest knew the civilians were relying on the Order for protection. The responsibility was a precious one and he felt the weight of it when he passed through the town, the few children looking up at him with scared, hopeful eyes, the mothers trying to hide their shaking hands, the fathers grim and tight-lipped. Priest realized that he could give all he had to this town and it still wouldn't be enough. War demanded too much of his all too mortal body…and he was weak.

He ducked down a side-street and climbed two flights of a staircase that was precariously nailed to the side of a house, giving access to the building's upper storey. Even though situated on the vast plains of the Wastelands, there wasn't much room in Jericho. The townsfolk had learned to stack their houses like church spires, the floors of the buildings narrowing the higher they went. It had an odd affect on the skyline, making the outpost look ever so slanted.

Priest himself was quartered in one of the smaller houses. His landlord was an aging widower who still took shifts as a railroad conductor even though he was retired. Priest saw little of the man and he was happy for his privacy. His secrets, of course, required solitude.

Opening the door, he paused on the threshold to shake the red dust from his boots. He saw the very crook of her elbow hanging off the edge of his bed. Priest kept the door opened behind him, as if he intended to flee and leave her alone in his room. But he knew, somehow, that she'd always be waiting for him.

She stirred, dropping one foot onto the floor as she righted herself. It was like watching someone come out of a trance.

"You're late," Rebecca rasped when he finally shut the door and trudged into the room. Her hair had fallen out of her braid, framing her face in an odd way so that she looked as though she were wearing a veil.

"I left my bike near the guard post," he said, shrugging out of his hooded over-tunic. "It's too tricky, navigating the tight streets in town. And it makes an awful lot a noise. A racket."

"Silence is for the dead," she replied. She was looking up at him with her ruined face.

Priest tried to remember if she'd ever told him the story of how her nose had become so scarred. He doubted she had, though, otherwise he would have never forgotten it.

_Another secret_, he told himself. And they had so many! Some kept from each other, the rest hidden from the world.

A hard knot tightened in his chest, forcing him to unbutton his collar so that he could breathe. There were no secrets, however, kept from God.

The room was hot, the air pungent with stale sweat and the slightly bitter smelling dust that blew in from the Wastelands. Priest dropped down in the chair next to his small table and turned up the lantern. Bruised-looking shadows spread across the walls. His quarters were cramped, only a little bigger than his cell back at the Order's monastery in Cathedral City. There was the bed and a chair, a table that was narrower than the breadth of his body and an out of place dresser that he would have liked to have moved, except that it wasn't _his_ room, really, only borrowed from the old widower who didn't even seem to notice that he had a tenant.

Priest felt confined whenever he had to be in his room, where there wasn't even a window to look out over the street or let any sunlight in. Without thinking, he turned up the lamp again, hoping to crowd out the dark.

Rebecca blinked and shielded her eyes as if she were standing out in the desert at noon. The little well of flesh at the base of her throat pulsed with her breath, her skin a strange sallow color that was neither burned from the sun nor exactly pale.

_Sickly_, Priest told himself and he knew enough of disease, had seen epidemics like measles and cholera race through some of the smaller outposts and fill their little churchyard cemeteries in a fortnight. It happened often, when people were packed too closely together, like sheep herded against a predator.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," she said with a yawn. "And I didn't mean to wait for you. Don't think I was waiting for you."

"No," he replied, trying to believe her lie, because it was a lie, really. Over the past few months they had become dependent upon each other, sharing a weakness that was confirmed every time they made love.

Priest could feel his muscles tensing at the thought. Even now, he was surprised at how quickly and easily he had broken his vows in favor of a few fleeting moments of pleasure and oblivion. He had his reasons, of course. His longing for Shannon, his loneliness, his anger at a life that seemed misspent, even though he was doing God's work. And Rebecca, he felt, must be searching for something beyond her narrow existence, although he didn't have the heart to tell her that she wouldn't find it in him.

Not yet, anyway. Not for a while. Not until, perhaps, they were caught.

He was suddenly cold, his guilt adhering to him like a second skin. Priest shivered as he thought of what the others might say, Seth and Rowan and all the novices who were still waiting to be ordained. He had disappointed them in some way by tarnishing their idol, by debasing Rebecca and himself only because they were needful creatures.

_God, oh God, what am I doing?_

Rebecca shrugged her shoulders. Her spine undulated sleekly beneath her dark cassock like a snake's. Priest was reminded of the Garden and Eve and the threat of temptation, which loomed over them like the heavy branches of that oh-so-dangerous apple tree.

But Rebecca wasn't anything like the seductive serpent. Sensuality did not come easily to her, as he knew when he sweated and strained above her, losing her somehow in their wild groping struggle for pleasure and release, their quick, hectic couplings that were more of a mockery of love than a reprieve from loneliness.

"Did you get something to eat?" she asked, her tone vaguely maternal.

His empty stomach clenched. "I don't much bother with the mess hall," he replied, thinking of the crowded, communal dining hall that the Order had appropriated in the basement of Jericho's only church. He liked to be alone when he could, or, rather, he liked to be alone with _her_. Rebecca knew it, of course, and it seemed to make her happy. And that was dangerous.

_God, oh God what am I doing?_

Rebecca smoothed out his pillowcase with the palm of her hand. The little act of feminine domesticity disgusted Priest. He hated how easily their lives had fallen together. He hated the simplicity of sin.

"Report?" Rebecca mumbled, as if she were only remembering why they were actually holed up in Jericho.

Priest, glad to be treated like a soldier once more, obliged her. "Some vamp tracks up by those caves in the northeast. I thought a female might be nesting there, but vampires usually don't breed this time of year, unless they're rogues cut-off from their hives."

Rebecca made a soft noise in the back of her throat.

"And what's more, there's been no attempt at a nighttime raid. We only had that skirmish two weeks ago by the railroad line down south. It seems like none of the herds are hunting. Either that, or they're starving themselves out in the Wastelands,"

"Or they've become disciplined," she interrupted. Her eyes shot up to him, the whites threaded with the red webbing of broken capillaries. "Does it bother you to consider that vampires might be like us…that they share with us the desperate struggle for survival? The Church tells us that our souls are what separate us from them, but maybe even that isn't enough to give us the advantage."

"You're implying-" Priest began, but was silenced by her sour grin.

Rebecca rose from the bed and crossed the tiny room. She took his hands in hers, studying the creases in his palms, her own calloused fingers rough against his knuckles. "I don't care for insinuations," she said. "I'm not implying anything. My doubt is real enough. Sometimes, yes sometimes, especially now, I wonder if this war will ever end."

Priest was stunned by her question. As the leader of the Order and one of its oldest members, Rebecca wasn't supposed to consider such possibilities. Her doubt assailed him with all the fury of hellfire. "You shouldn't say that," he warned.

"But we all think it-"

"We give words power when we speak them." Priest gripped her wrists, shook her once.

Rebecca was limp, her loosed braid dangling against one sagging shoulder. "I was only fifteen when I was ordained," she said, repeating the words that somehow always sounded like an admonishment, although he wasn't sure who she wanted to feel guilty. "That's young. That's very young, isn't it? And I'm tired, God be damned…I have a right to be tired."

Her profanity shocked him. Priest let go of her wrists, disgusted for an instant. "No," he said, "we none of us have the right to be jaded."

"We're human."

"We're Priests."

"Is that why I'm here tonight?" she asked.

His jaw tightened and he felt the repulsive desire to strike her. Having been raised under the auspices of the Church, Rebecca had no guile. He hated her innocence. He hated her frank naivety when it came to matters of complex morality. She could only see what they were doing as wrong and it infuriated him that she was too irresolute to stop it.

"Don't pretend to be so righteous," she drawled. "I know you better than that. I know the cracks and crevices of your soul…how wicked we all really are, how flawed. But aren't we pitiful, really? Did you honestly think your life would be this way?"

Priest tried to respond. He meant to denounce her blasphemy, which was all the more shocking to him because it came from _her_. She was supposed to believe_. _Of all people, she was supposed to have faith_._

But then he thought of Shannon and Lucy…how his life should have been.

Rebecca looked away from him and sighed, the profile of her ruined face poignant, so tragic. Priest did not know who he pitied more, himself or her. He had had a chance to live, at least. But she had been deprived. She had been singled out. She had been the victim of whatever injustice the Church was guilty of. And God would not be forgiving.

His heart welled with love for her, not the kind that he had shared with Shannon, but an acknowledgement of Rebecca's wretchedness and their mutual unhappiness, which had created something singular between them. It was not so much redemption as it was salvation. It was not so much a communion as a reunion between their two scarred, savage souls.

His hands found their way to her shoulders, his thumbs resting against the hard knobs of flesh that marked her collarbone. She had unbuttoned the top of her cassock, a faint trail of sweat twisting down her throat as her breathing became hectic, shallow.

And then Rebecca shivered. She trembled at his touch, her gaze softening, eyes fixed on the floor. Priest quickly turned the lamp down and suddenly they were alone together in the dark. With his hands on her shoulders he could feel her suppressed sobs and he sank down on the floor beside her, gathering her in his arms.

"What hell," Rebecca stammered, her voice lonesome and frail in the dark like the cry of a wounded animal, "what hell we live in and live through."

"It is the price we pay for strength. It's the price we pay for God's blessing," Priest muttered, unable to offer her any comfort because his own heart was pierced and bleeding. _Shannon…Lucy…our lives…our dream that could have been so different._

"Oh God," Rebecca said. "Oh God, oh God, Priest, how can you believe that we are blessed?"

Without meaning to, his grip tightened on her shoulders. "I believed in _you_," he ground out through gritted teeth. "You taught us to, _Priestess_. Singing your psalms every cold Sunday in the chapel. Ripping children away from their mothers because the Church ordained it. Starving us, beating us, marking us with your cross and…"

"And for what?" Rebecca asked suddenly, pushing herself up onto her knees until they were eye to eye.

Priest felt as if he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He sat back on his heels and stared at her, his superior in nearly everyway, and was frightened by her doubt.

_God, oh God what am I doing?_

"Rebecca," he said her name to ground them both. With the palm of his hand, he cradled her chin, his fingers splayed against her cheek, dangerously close to that ruined nose of hers.

Her eyelids drooped and she looked off to the side, her expression wistful. "I was only fifteen when I was ordained," she repeated. "That's young. That's very young, isn't it?"

The night closed in around them. Priest would later realize that it was one of the most intimate moments of his life, sitting there with Rebecca, bearing their raw and wretched souls to each other so that the pain was nearly exquisite.

He kissed her, his lips finding the moist corner of skin at the far edge of her mouth. His hands had roamed to the unbuttoned collar of her tunic and as he pushed the shirt from her shoulders, Rebecca seemed to shrink away from him, an artless lover still beholden to her virgin's shame. The air between them was thick with the smell of oil from the lantern.

Priest leaned forward, intending to bury his face in her loosed hair but Rebecca stood. She took his hands and brought him over to the narrow bed and there they laid, there they grappled and twisted and turned and clutched at each other so fiercely, their sweat-slick skin like pale stars in an otherwise decadent darkness.

It was ritualistic behavior, Priest told himself as he moved against her, no, as they moved together. Rebecca's hair was scattered on the muslin pillowcase, her face that was not Shannon's straining with tears and perhaps some of that elusive weakness that he had always hoped to find in her.

But her body was unfamiliar to him yet, despite the instinct of their many couplings. There was nothing of the pliant female about Rebecca, her flesh did not give, but coiled and bunched over her taut muscles. He lowered his lips to her navel, his tongue following the path of her hip bone, all the while counting the myriad striations on her skin, the scars that were superficial at most, but worn with something of careless pride.

And it was in that moment, the breathless space between effort and release, that Priest finally understood her doubt.

_God, oh God what am I doing?_ He asked himself frantically. And then, _God, oh God, what am I?_

Flawed, he reasoned, but not wicked. Lonely, but able to love. And there was the distinct possibility, that together, in the dark, their bodies fitted and pressed to each other's like melting wax, that he might be able to love her. Rebecca, not Shannon. Because her name was Rebecca…

_Rebecca._

He called her name, near the end.

They sank into oblivion afterwards, the two of them, twisted in the sheets. Priest had his shoulder pressed against hers while she absentmindedly twirled a dried strand of her hand between her fingers. She was breathing deeply, her chest heaving. Priest watched her breasts rise and fall. His eyes trailed along the length of her body, which somehow seemed fleshier to him, a little weight now present in her usually sleek hips, her hollowed bowl of a stomach pressing out in a rotund little hill. And her breasts, the skin pulled tight with small, nearly iridescent stretch lines near the aureoles.

Priest sat up suddenly, cold fear striking him. He glanced at Rebecca's face, which despite their rigorous lovemaking, had not lost its strange, sickly pallor. Something was…something could be wrong…

Accidently, the side of his hand swiped her lower abdomen, gliding over the swell of skin, that primal sign, evidence of her femininity now realized just as if she been ordained.

Ordained a mother…

Priest choked, his head slamming back against the headboard with so much force the entire bed shook.

"What is it?" Rebecca glanced up at him with true concern. "Priest?"

But he couldn't look at her. Closing his fists over his eyes, Priest began to pray.

_God, oh God, what have I done?  
_

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much for reading! Well, we've had a glimpse into Priest's relationship with Shannon and Rebecca, so I guess that just leaves, oh yeah, Priestess! Don't worry, I didn't forget her. The long-awaited Priest/Priestess chapters are coming up next. Hopefully it won't take me quite so long to update this time. ;)

If you have a free moment, please leave a review. Feedback is my lifeblood. Until next time, take care and be well!


End file.
